The 021Disrupt conference, organised by The Nest I/O in Karachi in November 2019, was unprecedented on multiple fronts. Captioned with the motto ‘nothing innovative ever stood still’, the conference, designed to link up investors and budding entrepreneurs in Pakistan, was more than …Continue reading
Inside Lahore’s public e-sports culture
As you enter the premises, you’re greeted by flashing beams of neon lights fixed on the walls and a strangely congruous sound from constant pushing of buttons and movement of joysticks. The pink, green and blue lights are just bright enough to …Continue reading
A closer look at IT-aided policing in Punjab
In 2013, the police started identifying crime hotspots in Lahore with the help of Information Technology experts at a premiere private university in the city. The plan was to use the latest technology for efficient allocation of scarce policing resources, and better …Continue reading
A museum for the new age
Museums show how the past and the present are intricately linked together. By exhibiting material dating back in time, museums provide visitors with information needed to imagine a collective present, as nations or as human species. Advances in information and telecommunication technologies …Continue reading
The 10 worst technologies of the 21st century
You’d think it would be easy to come up with a list of bad technologies from the past couple of decades. But we had a hard time agreeing: What makes a “bad” technology? After all, technologies can be bad because they fail …Continue reading
Understanding Pakistan’s cybersecurity woes
It may not be unreasonable to say that Pakistanis do not trust banks. According to a study carried out by Standard Chartered Bank and independent research agency GlobeScan in 2017, 50 percent of emerging affluent Pakistanis prefer to save cash at home …Continue reading
Rise of the robots
Gone are the days when Lego was considered child’s play. The building blocks that you played with in your youth have given way to a new breed of advanced programmable robots. Each version of this Lego building block system contains a few …Continue reading
Starting them off early
Excited chatter fills the air as more than 25 children pour into the room at Olomopolo Media theater. A team of volunteers seats the children in groups around small tables. The first agenda of the day is to create soap bubbles. Soon …Continue reading
The billion tree solution
The word tsunami means devastation elsewhere in the world. But in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhunkhwa province, people are associating it with a flood of green. The provincial government has fought back climate change and deforestation by planting millions of saplings. The project is officially …Continue reading
The perils of drinking water
Safe drinking water is a basic human right. Goal six of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) states that universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water should be provided for all by the year 2030. However, in …Continue reading